The Meaning of Reality According to NBC’s “The Good Place”

In the following dialog between two of the characters on NBC’s show, The Good Place, the question turns to the meaning of pain and the meaning of the universe. Elanor, the one who asks, has just lost her love. Janet, the one who answers, is some sort of heavenly entity programmed with every answer to every question. Notice that her answer to meaning is about non-motive (non-meaning). Against this, Christians affirm that Jesus is the meaning of the universe. Alas, the script writers at NBC deny Christ, choosing instead to disparage that the universe has a point at all.

The Good Place, season 3, episode 12.

Elanor speaking to Janet, “Tell me the answer.”

Janet, “Sorry?”

Elanor: “You know: The answer to everything. You know all there is to know in the universe. Crunch the numbers. Tell me the answer. What’s the point of love if it’s just gonna disappear? And how is it worse to not love anybody? There has to be meaning to existence, otherwise the universe is just made of pain, and I don’t like the thought of that, so tell me the answer.”

Janet: “I know how you feel. The more human I become, the less things make sense. But that’s part of the fun, right?”

Eleanor: “What do you mean?”

Janet: “If there were an answer I could give you to how the universe works, it wouldn’t be special, it would just be machinery fulfilling its cosmic design. It would be just a big dumb food processor. But since nothing seems to make sense, when you find something or someone that does, it’s euphoria. In all this randomness and this pandemonium you and [your man] found each other, and you had a life together. Isn’t that remarkable?

Eleanor: “I guess all I can do is embrace the pandemonium and find happiness in the unique insanity of being here, now.”